Our orange cat, Mickey, is the dearest kind of friend. But the friendship, like any other, is not without certain trials.</p><p> I do not mind waking in the night to find him asleep with his head on the pillow between us. I do rather object to his desire to join us at the table &mdash; not just at it, <em>on</em> it &mdash; while we eat.</p><p> He is good company while I write. As is fairly common with us folk who make our way with words, my office area is a clutter. And I worried at first that he might rearrange things in a way that would oblige me to take up a different line of work.</p><p> But he&rsquo;s respectful of my need for calculated disorder. He leaves the stacks of paper unmolested. And though he sometimes naps atop the typewriter, he only rarely erases an hour&rsquo;s labor by stepping on the delete button of the computer keyboard.</p><p> What&rsquo;s more, mine is a solitary vocation, all the more so when one&rsquo;s office is at home. Just having Mickey nearby provides relief from the essayist&rsquo;s occupational curse of endless introspection.</p><p> He speaks occasionally, but doesn&rsquo;t ask to read &mdash; and never criticizes &mdash; my muddled efforts.</p><p> I&rsquo;d say that he and I might get along more or less perfectly if it weren&rsquo;t for his fixation with doors, which began several years ago when he grew dissatisfied with his status as an indoor cat.</p><p> My wife gave him a taste of the larger world by sitting with him for short periods in the fenced backyard, letting him roll in the grass, eye the impudent squirrels and imagine himself a predator.</p><p> That was a mistake. Now it isn&rsquo;t enough to sometimes be <em>allowed</em> out. He wants it to be his call.</p><p> He is vigilant, closely monitoring our goings and comings. At the least moment of inattention, he is through the door and at large.</p><p> Once, when my wife was visiting friends in another state, he escaped like that and fled around the corner of the house and was gone in an orange streak, down the drive and behind the garage toward the neighbors&rsquo; yard &mdash; a yard with a large dog of unknown feelings for cats.</p><p> I was frantic. If my beloved came home and found him gone, I just might end up out on the curb with my suitcase and a typewriter.</p><p> So I wandered through the neighborhood, shouting his name. Maybe he&rsquo;d slipped back around to the front door, I thought. But he wasn&rsquo;t there. I searched behind the bushes, fell into a window well, tore my pants and skinned my leg.</p><p> He was gone. That&rsquo;s all. I sat on the front steps, nursing my wound and howling my despair.</p><p> And just then he presented himself &mdash; came around the corner of the house, perfectly serene, as if he wondered what the commotion was about.</p><p> We&rsquo;ve learned. When leaving now, we go out the door backward, eyes on him, speaking his name in a cautionary way. On entering, we put a leg through the door first. Mostly it works. The other morning, though, there was a crisis.</p><p> At an early hour, when other houses on the block still were dark, I slipped out in my pajamas, barefoot, to see if the newspaper had come.</p><p> I wasn&rsquo;t carrying keys, so when I closed the door behind me I didn&rsquo;t quite pull it all the way until it latched. As I came back with the paper and climbed the step I heard a fatal click. Mickey had shut me out.</p><p> For a desperate moment, I couldn&rsquo;t find the spare key in its hiding place, and I contemplated the hour or so of humiliation that lay ahead until my predicament was discovered.</p><p> I did locate the key, though, and now I&rsquo;d never dream of going out again without it securely in my hand. </p><p> But he&rsquo;s a clever cat, that Mickey, and a resourceful one.</p><p> If he ever learns to operate the dead bolt, I guess I&rsquo;m toast.